


Had that one day not been

by zinjadu



Series: Wed to Blight [59]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: Anora POV, Carrying On, Complicated Relationships, F/M, Family, Gen, Post-Dragon Age: Origins Quest - The Battle of Denerim, Regret
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-05
Updated: 2020-01-05
Packaged: 2021-02-27 06:47:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,113
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22102822
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zinjadu/pseuds/zinjadu
Summary: If you were given the choice to undo one thing, what would it be?  The murder of your husband?  Your father's grab for power?  Where would you shift the lever of fate to avert all you had lost?  Anora asks that very question as she witnesses Warden Tabris keep everything she herself has lost.Note:This is the penultimate installment!  Just one more sum up chapter left, and then it's all done.  Oh my word, I didn't know if we'd get here, but thank you, thank you so much for reading, leaving kudos, and commenting on Caitwyn's journey.  Much love.  <3
Relationships: Alistair/Female Tabris (Dragon Age), Alistair/Female Warden (Dragon Age), Alistair/Tabris (Dragon Age), Alistair/Warden (Dragon Age), Anora Mac Tir & Female Warden, Anora Mac Tir & Loghain Mac Tir, Anora Mac Tir/Cailan Theirin, Cyrion Tabris & Female Tabris, Zevran Arainai & Female Warden
Series: Wed to Blight [59]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/879681
Comments: 2
Kudos: 16





	Had that one day not been

In a shadowed, out of the way corner, the two surviving Wardens slumped together, asleep.

Anora knew they deserved the rest. Even after the archdemon had been slain, not all the darkspawn had been able to flee. Some lingered in corners and had to be rooted out. The Wardens had been relentless, tracking the creatures down and eradicating them. The pair had been lauded at every turn, especially the girl, Tabris. Credit fell to her as the one who had been spotted upon the dragon’s back before it died. 

Their rising popularity could become a dagger at her back. And yet, as she pondered the pair, she could not help how her throat constricted at the sight of them.

Alistair’s head lolled forward, soft snores just audible under the babble of the banns and arls and courtiers who already jockeyed for position and influence in the aftermath. She pursed her lips and hummed her non-commitment as yet another man offered his good sword arm and more besides. At least he did not outright  _ say _ she required a husband. Others had.

But they did not have her full attention. Out the corner of her eye, it did not escape her notice how the elven Warden curled into Alistair in her sleep. 

That had been her once, with a man who had a long nose and a crooked smile. Perhaps, had Cailan remained true— 

Lips twisting, Anora raised her chin and squared her shoulders. “Thank you, good sers, for bringing these matters to Our attention. We shall consider your suggestions most carefully, for in this time we must stand together as Fereldens and stay strong.”

“Yes, Majesty,” they chorused, bowing and placing hands over hearts. They all knew a lack of answer then they heard one, but they could not naysay her now. The crown was still on her head, and it would be for many years to come. She would make sure of that.

With a flick of her wrist, she dismissed them, and they scurried to about be about their tasks. She turned to summon a servant when a commotion erupted at the great doors to the main hall. Guards shouted, but through the din cut a thready cry, “That is my daughter!”

An old elf wrenched himself away from a mailed hand, and though he was pale and grey haired, there was no mistaking the eyes. Soot streaked his face and clothes, but before another guard could so much as lay another hand on him, the Antivan assassin emerged from the shadows, casually tossing a knife in the air.

“Friends, friends, do not be so hasty. You would manhandle the father of our dear Warden Tabris? I do not think she would take kindly to such things, do you?” His smile was friendly, but his eyes were hard. Anora had not doubted that someone watched over the sleeping Wardens, and now she knew which one of them it was. The entire pack of her friends, all fiercely, murderously loyal. 

There were already songs and stories about how the young Warden had extended her hand in friendship to those in need, had protected the weak and guided the lost. Exaggerations certainly, but with a kernel of truth. They sung no songs of kings dead by unfathomable betrayal and queens merely trying to survive.

The guards backed away, respectfully touching their forelocks and the Crow guided the old elf to where his daughter slept. Tears welled in his eyes, and he clapped a hand over his mouth.

Anora stepped to join him, earning her an arch look from the assassin, but she dismissed him from thought. As if she would plunge a dagger into the girl. Or Alistair. She had what she had wanted, and though the cost had been high, promises must be kept.

“Your daughter has done Ferelden a great service Master Tabris,” she said. “You must be very proud of her.”

He gave a start, as if he had not even realized she was there, and then began to bow. “I’m sorry, Majesty, please forgive me, I didn’t—”

“You were concerned only for your daughter. I—I know how much a father worries for a daughter.” Her chest tightened as someone had pulled on her corset strings. Tighter and tighter, wound and bound up. She had cried but once for her father in public, after his head and been struck from his shoulders. 

She would give the world no further satisfaction.

“Thank you, Majesty. Oh, I don’t want to wake her. Either of them. Cait told me Wardens can endure past the ability of ordinary people, but they’ve done so much. Would it be too much to ask, Majesty, to sit with her? I know I should not ask, but—”

“Master Tabris, you must stay with your daughter. I will see to it that a suitable chair be brought for you, and some food and water. I cannot imagine what you have been through these past days. Please,” she continued with all the grace and good will she could summon. “You simply must.”

He gave her the deepest bow she had received in her life, and she waved servants to attend him. They did so gently, kindly. The father of the Warden who had saved them was among them; he would want for nothing. At least not until he returned to the Alienage.

For the space of a heartbeat, she considered the sight before her. One day was all it took, for a life to change. The space of a single moment for loss to cut away what had seemed more solid than mountains, as reliable as the tides, more enduring than the stars. If pressed, if ground into the stone, could she say what day she would take back? What hour she would overturn? What choice she would undo?

Anora turned her back on all of them and gestured for a clerk to come scuttling forward. The crown remained on her head, and though Ferelden had not been swallowed by the Blight, it was far from saved. The spring planting had been disrupted to the point where winter might see the country collapse anyway. The usual trade routes were disrupted; the Free Marches had turned in on themselves, and Orlais was not to be trusted. The chevaliers would stay on their side of the border.

The business of politics and rulership ran ever onward, and she did not so much as glance back at Warden Tabris, asleep next to her devoted lover and with her still living father to watch over her.

Queen Anora Theirin took up the next report, and she turned her attention to the next thankless task.


End file.
